Runaway Global Warming

Actually, it seems that prior climate change has been very rapid, especially, the warming phases.

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There is no record of any warming even a fifth the speed of this one.

sculptor said:

Look at bog and pond studies of pollen changes. eg: one in wisconsin showed a change from a pine to an oak forest in under a century.

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That does not mean the climate warmed quickly. Slow warming often causes sudden transitions. We very much hope that such transition intervals are not somehow percentage locked to the interval of warming - we very much hope that a thousand year interval of climate change causing a hundred year ecological replacement interval does not imply that a hundred year interval of climate change will enforce ten year ecological displacements - because that would be disastrous for us.

sculptor said:

We ain't nowhere near those warming speeds(yet)

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The global warming rate that contributed (along with the change in rainfall patterns and so forth) to the sudden ecological adjustment you mention has been measured. It was less than a tenth of the current global rate, IIRC - a couple of degrees C in thousands of years.

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... {When his friend did not want to publish report telling exactly the opposite research results the political leadership wanted and expected, River} "pointed out that he might then be fired because he hadn’t done anything for two years, although that is no guarantee in a bureaucracy."

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That alone made reading your long post worth my time. I write long posts too that few will read.

last sentence of River's post:" All we can do is ask questions to help the public realize the inadequacy of the data and lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind IPCC claims. "

I agree; but on what that uncertainty implies, I think "better safe, than sorry" is the correct guidance, and at least world should be doing things with "negative cost" (to all but oil industry) like switching to sugar cane based alcohol for their cars, to reduce CO2 release. It is cheaper per mile driven, renewable, a creator of many low-skill jobs for now unemployed in third world so they could be buying products like TVs from industries paying good salaries - a badly needed "win/win" for the global economy that would help slow the concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 3%.

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The term "climate change" was first used by an MIT professor in a 1979 National Academy of Science study, and others quickly followed. When was Tim Ball's book published?

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2014

If I remember right ( while you are perhaps right on who first came up with the term , climate change ) is that the IPCC used it because the evidence showed that the global temps. were actually getting cooler , hence of course " global warming " no longer made sense

Actually, it seems that prior climate change has been very rapid, especially, the warming phases.
Look at bog and pond studies of pollen changes. eg: one in wisconsin showed a change from a pine to an oak forest in under a century.
We ain't nowhere near those warming speeds(yet).

In the northernmost foothills of the Polar Ural mountains on the southern Yamal Peninsula in West Siberia, Russia, tundra shrubs are turning into small trees, with big implications.
. . .
In this part of the Arctic, which could be a bellwether for changes to come elsewhere with greenhouse-driven warming, what might be called pop-up forests are forming. Low tundra shrubs, many of which are willow and alder species, have rapidly grown into small trees over the last 50 years, according to the study, led by scientists from the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Oxford and the Arctic Center of the University of Lapland. The researchers foresee a substantial additional local warming influence from this change in landscapes, with the darker foliage absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back to space. But the fast-motion shift to forests will likely absorb carbon dioxide, as well.
. . .
“The speed and magnitude of the observed change is far greater than we expected,” said Prof. Bruce Forbes of the Arctic Center, University of Lapland, corresponding author of the paper. Adds Dr. Marc Macias-Fauria from Oxford University, lead author, “Previously people had thought that the tundra would be colonized by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that could potentially take centuries. But what we’ve found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming into trees in just a few decades.”
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is that the IPCC used it because the evidence showed that the global temps. were actually getting cooler , hence of course " global warming " no longer made sense

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No, it is because increasing CO2 has more effects that just warming. Global warming is one part of climate change. Ocean acidification is another. So:
Climate change - all effects including warming
Global warming - JUST warming

In the northernmost foothills of the Polar Ural mountains on the southern Yamal Peninsula in West Siberia, Russia, tundra shrubs are turning into small trees, with big implications.
. . .
In this part of the Arctic, which could be a bellwether for changes to come elsewhere with greenhouse-driven warming, what might be called pop-up forests are forming. Low tundra shrubs, many of which are willow and alder species, have rapidly grown into small trees over the last 50 years, according to the study, led by scientists from the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Oxford and the Arctic Center of the University of Lapland. The researchers foresee a substantial additional local warming influence from this change in landscapes, with the darker foliage absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back to space. But the fast-motion shift to forests will likely absorb carbon dioxide, as well.
. . .
“The speed and magnitude of the observed change is far greater than we expected,” said Prof. Bruce Forbes of the Arctic Center, University of Lapland, corresponding author of the paper. Adds Dr. Marc Macias-Fauria from Oxford University, lead author, “Previously people had thought that the tundra would be colonized by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that could potentially take centuries. But what we’ve found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming into trees in just a few decades.”
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Sure

But the evidence shows that the Medieval Warm Period ( MWP ) was warmer than it is now

We are actually faster. Tundra to forest in 50 years: ... The researchers foresee a substantial additional local warming influence from this change in landscapes, with the darker foliage absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back to space. But the fast-motion shift to forests will likely absorb carbon dioxide, as well. . . .

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Interesting but sort of obvious. I had not recognized it so thanks.

However whether this is positive or negative feed back to the global warming rate is not clear to me. The trees need to remove ~100 pounds of CO2 from the air for very 1 pound of CH4 their local warming releases from the tundra.

However whether this is positive or negative feed back to the global warming rate is not clear to me. The trees need to remove ~100 pounds of CO2 from the air for very 1 pound of CH4 their local warming releases from the tundra.

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Agreed. On the other hand, for any given area of tundra the new forest continues to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as long as the higher temperature allows its continued existence, while methane releases will eventually stop when the tundra's stores of releasable methane are exhausted. Thus the risk is likely highest early in any warming trend.

As others have pointed out, the SPEED at which this is happening is quite new. And speed matters.

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It sure is! Paul Crutzen ,winner of the 1994 Noble Prize for his work on atmospheric chemistry and how man is changing it in his acceptance speech (in 1995) gave quite a detailed scientific lecture. Included was that the main sink for CH4 was the reaction with the OH radical (formed at high altitude by harsh UV) and mentioned that the half live of CH4, based on measurements some not identified years early was 8 years. That reaction is mutually destructive of the CH4 & the OH, but for about 600,000 year the CH4 level was more than three times lower than in the modern era.

Now the rate of release of CH4 is much faster than the UV production rate of OH, so OH concentration in air is decreasing and that of CH4 is increasing. Other half life measurements in 2003 gave CH4's half life as 9.6 years. The most recent I know of (2013) give it as 12.6 years - not long before it is 20 years as CH4 is cleaning the air of OH radical

YES, "SPEED MATTERS" For link to Crutzen Nobel speech and more discussion of how stupid it is to be making alcohol from corn for "gasohol" See:

It sure is! Paul Crutzen ,winner of the 1994 Noble Prize for his work on atmospheric chemistry and how man is changing it in his acceptance speech (in 1995) gave quite a detailed scientific lecture. Included was that the main sink for CH4 was the reaction with the OH radical (formed at high altitude by harsh UV) and mentioned that the half live of CH4, based on measurements some not identified years early was 8 years. That reaction is mutually destructive of the CH4 & the OH, but for about 600,000 year the CH4 level was more than three times lower than in the modern era.

Now the rate of release of CH4 is much faster than the UV production rate of OH, so OH concentration in air is decreasing and that of CH4 is increasing. Other half life measurements in 2003 gave CH4's half life as 9.6 years. The most recent I know of (2013) give it as 12.6 years - not long before it is 20 years as CH4 is cleaning the air of OH radical

YES, "SPEED MATTERS" For link to Crutzen Nobel speech and more discussion of how stupid it is to be making alcohol from corn for "gasohol" See:

also see Dansgaard's research
Swings of temperature that in the 1950s scientists had believed would take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s thousands of years, and in the 1980s hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades. Ice core analysis by Dansgaard's group, confirmed by the Americans' parallel hole, showed rapid oscillations of temperature repeatedly at irregular intervals throughout the last glacial period. Greenland had sometimes warmed a shocking 7°C within a span of less than 50 years.

As I stated, we ain't nowhere near those speeds
Think about this 5 times faster would be a leap of 35 degrees C in just 50 years
maybe, we have 1/2 degree in 50 years

Antarctic ice core records and measurement. I have posted many times a graph showing CH4. After 15 minutes of jumping only two pages at a time I found graph in: "Climate Gate" thread.

"The new sciforums search is terrible, compared to old, or I may not yet know how to use it. I want search for only my old posts. - not to go page by page thru thread (after first recalling what title was) only skipping alterante pages as no way go to say page 40 then page 50 etc. to bracket your search of the forum.

Note concentration varies with ice age cyces but even when was peak still less than 1/3 of now. Rate of CO2 release now is making CH4 release much too fast to say in old dynamic equilibrium with OH radical production. "This time is truely different" (with no upper limit on CH4 concentration known as there is more waiting to be released than ALL THE OTHER FOSSIL FUELS THAT EVER EXISTED!) Man may have triggered something he cannot stop.

Low tundra shrubs, many of which are willow and alder species, have rapidly grown into small trees over the last 50 years, according to the study, led by scientists from the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Oxford and the Arctic Center of the University of Lapland.

Previously people had thought that the tundra would be colonized by trees from the boreal forest to the south as the Arctic climate warms, a process that could potentially take centuries. But what we’ve found is that the shrubs that are already there are transforming into trees in just a few decades.”

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It is silly to think that species of willow/alder wouldnt grow taller with better weather. But that is not to say boreal forests wont expand northward in a process that could potentially take centuries.

How in the world does one take deciduous plant growth and say this alters the expectation of future boreal forest expansion?

The last few posts have been great but at the same I think that we may be going on a bit of a tangent here

The thing is that this global warming or climate change which we are all so very familiar with is fundamentally a bunch of nonsense

If I may quote again from Tims' book again , pg. 161

" What is wrong with the CO2 argument ?

AGW ( Anthropogenic Global Warming ) advocates and governments talk about reducing greenhouse gas , but they mean CO2 . Few know it is less than 4% of all the greenhouse gases and the human portion is just a fraction of the 4% . Indeed , the amount we produce is within the error factor of the estimates of three natural sources. "

Agreed. On the other hand, for any given area of tundra the new forest continues to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as long as the higher temperature allows its continued existence, while methane releases will eventually stop when the tundra's stores of releasable methane are exhausted. Thus the risk is likely highest early in any warming trend.

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Not true. Trees remove CO2 only while growing but that is very finite time. For example in 2005 drought and decaying humus on the floor and falling leaves made the Amazon an net SOURCE of CO2. That now happens 50% of the years as global warming has changed the rain fall patterns. Not surprisingly, "rain forest" need rain. If they don't get it they dump CO2 into the air. If they burn, their soot will do even more damage by lowering the albedo of high clouds (Hadley cell circulation tops) over half the earth from ~2/3 to less than 1/3 - a huge increase in solar absorption, in less than a decade.

... The thing is that this global warming or climate change which we are all so very familiar with is fundamentally a bunch of nonsense.

AGW ( Anthropogenic Global Warming ) advocates and governments talk about reducing greenhouse gas , but they mean CO2 . Few know it is less than 4% of all the greenhouse gases and the human portion is just a fraction of the 4% . Indeed , the amount we produce is within the error factor of the estimates of three natural sources. "

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This is nonsense. We now measure CO2 at 400 parts per million up from pre-industrial ~340ppm as I recall - That is a 17.8% increase, but yes, 4x10^2 / 10^6 = 0.0004, even less than 4% (He can't even do simple math!)

But what you neglect is the natural concentration made a dynamic equilibrium that is now disturbed. You need to be concern with the magnitude of the disturbance, not the percent of the impurity added. For example Death may occur within 1 hour when breathing 100 ppm HCN. That is only 25 % of the current CO2 concentration. Point is that it is the effects, not the concentration in PPM your attention should be direced to.

Already the "polar vortex" dips into the deep south is dong millions of dollars worth of economic damage. Japan is suffering yet another cyclone as I type and has had record breaking flooding already. - There have been in 2014 already twice the averages number of "super cyclones" in the Pacific Oceans. Already 1/3 of ocean coral has died from slightly more acidic ocean.

Summary: to focus on ppm concentrations and not the effect is where the real nonsense is.